1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information processing apparatuses, process control methods, and process control program products, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus, a process control method, and a process control program product for controlling the start-up and the end of a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In company offices, plural devices such as printers, copiers, fax machines, or multifunction peripherals realizing functions of such devices in a single housing are interconnected via a communication network.
Each of these devices includes consumable elements that are consumed by using the device. The function of the device can be maintained by appropriately replacing such a consumable element. For example, in the case of a printer, toner, a fixing unit, a toner eject bottle, a photoconductor, and a developer correspond to consumable elements, which are generally referred to as supplies.
It is difficult to determine the extent to which a supply is consumed from the outside of a device. The only way a user can acknowledge that there is no toner remaining is by receiving an error message after sending an instruction to perform a printing operation. The user replaces a toner cartridge upon receiving the error message. In order to reduce the workload inflicted on the user, the following techniques have been proposed. One approach is to detect the service life of the supply inside the device. The detected information on the supply is displayed on an operations panel or printed out on a sheet of paper. Another approach is to cause the device to send a signal outside indicating that, the supply needs to be replaced, so that a maintenance person is dispatched to the office where the device is installed. Yet another approach is to cause the printer driver to send outside an order command according to the remaining amount of supply.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. H10-198236
Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-345560
Patent Document 3: UK Patent Application Publication No. GB 2341698
However, even if the service life of a supply can be detected, if the user is to order the supply and replace the supply, the user needs to take the trouble of correctly confirming the model number of the supply to be replaced and place an order. Furthermore, even when the user wants to make the order before the supply finishes, the timing at which an order can be made may depend on the business hours of the vendor. Moreover, labor costs and delivery costs arise for making an order.
Even if the printer driver can automatically make an order, the following problem arises. That is, even if the printer is seldom used or if the user is intending to stop using the printer, an order is automatically made according to the remaining amount of supply. Thus, even when the user is no longer intending to use the printer or when there is no need to replace the supply, the printer driver may automatically order a supply counter to the user's intention.